This invention relates to computers and particularly to battery-operable portable computers having word processing and other complex operating capabilities.
Battery-operated portable computers of the type which have recently been commercially introduced generally utilize liquid crystal displays in lieu of the CRT Display prevalent in larger microcomputers. They achieve substantial reductions in size by dispensing with conventional disc drives that accept software in the form of floppy discs, and by substituting tape cassette and microcassette storage devices therefor. However, such portable computers exhibit a number of serious disadvantages. Aside from their usually limited internal memories, cassette storage devices seriously slow down the speed with which an operator may use the computer. Also, the total surface area of a portable computer may be only the size of a telephone book or smaller. Hence, the keyboard that is necessary for operation of a computer competes with other facilities that must be accessible to the computer operator for surface space on the computer. As a result, the number of columns and rows of text which can be displayed on a battery-operated portable computer has heretofore been quite small. Also, operators have had to be satisfied either without, or with extremely slow, external storage capabilities.
An object of the invention is to overcome these difficulties.